Rehash of TP theories (split from "False Returns")

[Judge Roy Bean]

...They didn't need any money. Read the record from that period its clear it was to reduce taxation on the working class headed up by the populists. Read the memoirs of Cordell Hull the guy that wrote the bill.

The very concept of any political entity not needing money is absurd. You can rationalize it any way you want from readings of the perpetrators/designers, but the fact of the matter is, any political system will develop constructs that allow for the future expansion of power as the populace grows and the society becomes more complex. That expansion can only be accomplished with additional forms of revenue.

[rachel]

No one said you have to accept my opinion...you have two options as I see it, don't respond and ignore my posts or discuss why you believe they are wrong or right. Posts like Dukey's are just trolling...he acts as if I'm demanding and trying to enforce my opinion of the law on everyone. He seems to miss the fact that he could just not respond and ignore my posts. Instead he acts like a child and starts throwing rocks. Out of the 1270 posts he's made I bet 1265 are nothing but personal attacks. Something that would have gotten anyone that doesn't agree with this forum banned before post 10.

Sybil, in this forum has called me a nazi, a socialist, a communist and other titles. He has attacked me personally on numerous occaisons. But I am supposed to just ignore him. I also see serious consequences of letting his out and out lies and misstatements go unchallenged. His approach is that he should be able to post any damn lie he wants and I am just supposed ignore it or if I do say something about it, I'm a troll. He also thinks I could respond to his lies... well I have. I call them the lies that they are. If telling the truth about his bullcrap is an attack... well so be it. And if you think that his tantrum is going to change me.... good luck.

Yes, Sybil, you are entitled to your opinion... but if that opinion (as it inevitably is) is simply wrong and stupid... I'm not letting it pass.

I only respond to your troll posts in like fashion....

Steve,
Why do you argue with these quacks?
Take a look at this site.
http://section520.org/rjmseminar1.html

[Nikki]

You have to remember the 14th amendment is not law, it's never been passed, not ratified. So when you claim you are a U.S. citizen, you claim that you're a little green man from Mars with six heads; and that's the way the court looks at you, a dummy that doesn't know what he's talking about.

Keep them coming, Rachel. Thinsgs have been too dull since vanPelt got himself banned and left the official Quatloosian Village Idiot position vacant.

Be patient. Your application is still being processed.

[LPC]

I have issue with judges finding meaning in phrases and sentences that just isn't there.

You're the one who argued with me-- at great length-- that when the Constitution says "The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived," it meant that Congress has no power to tax the earnings of ordinary workers in the private sector.

When the 16th Amendment was proposed, and adopted, the word "income" did not include wages or salaries (according to Sybil).

And yet, according to Sybil, the two or three commentators in the Constitutional debates who said that a tax on "incomes" or "revenues" would be a "direct tax" were talking about wages and salaries.

And, of course, most modern dictionaries would put wages and salaries within the definition of "income."

But fortunately for Sybil, the 16th Amendment was proposed and ratified during the few years in American history when "income" did not include wages and salaries.

And we have Sybil's word for this, because there's no other evidence to support his claims.

[Gregg]

No one said you have to accept my opinion...you have two options as I see it, don't respond and ignore my posts or discuss why you believe they are wrong or right.

But Steve, the fact is you, I and everyone has to accept the opinion of the courts, and until you get a Federal Judge who is as loopy in his beliefs and has as deluded a personal lexicon as you do, the part that matters is "from whatever source" and the "derived" part is just assumed to mean what everyone but you, the Clan Brown, and numerous other miscellaneous minions and various vassals of imbecility. I don't like paying taxes anymore than Danny Riley and friends do, but I'm not so disturbed or narcissistic that I think my views should prevail over what several generations of more or less fairly chosen arbiters of the law have decided.
One thing I have always wondered....if what you and the wingnut brigade say is true, that none of the tax code really applies to us and it's all a grand conspiracy to trick us into paying taxes, I gotta ask, WHY? The people who make the tax laws don't need to trick us, they have to power to come right out in the open and say it, and if that's not what the congress meant and it was all hijacked by the ebil gobment boys over at the IRS, how come not once has Congress tried to rein in the great conspiracy? Surely there'd be a few votes in getting the IRS out of the revenue collection business?

[SteveSy]

No one said you have to accept my opinion...you have two options as I see it, don't respond and ignore my posts or discuss why you believe they are wrong or right.

But Steve, the fact is you, I and everyone has to accept the opinion of the courts, and until you get a Federal Judge who is as loopy in his beliefs and has as deluded a personal lexicon as you do, the part that matters is "from whatever source" and the "derived" part is just assumed to mean what everyone but you, the Clan Brown, and numerous other miscellaneous minions and various vassals of imbecility.

Huh...that's gibberish. I'll go by what I assume you meant to say.

Please explain what the phrase "from whatever source derived" adds to "The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes" with your understanding of the amendment? Apparently its useless redundant nonsense...it would have to be if you are right.

I don't like paying taxes anymore than Danny Riley and friends do, but I'm not so disturbed or narcissistic that I think my views should prevail over what several generations of more or less fairly chosen arbiters of the law have decided.

It has nothing to be with being narcissistic. It has to do with principal. These are just mere men, some very ignorant, who with a whim may have sentenced you to a life of debt to the federal government. Do you so easily cower for everything? Who cares if they are arbiters...they are mere men who are authorizing another mere man to take from you and your family for life. They will take enough money from you in your lifetime to pay for each of your kids to go to a top college, buy them each a very nice house and more, if you're middle income. Simply claiming the arbiters have spoken you're done is pathetic IMO. How do you think evil men get in to powerful positions....they do it by having people like you as the citizenry...sorry to be so blunt but that's how I see it.

One thing I have always wondered....if what you and the wingnut brigade say is true, that none of the tax code really applies to us and it's all a grand conspiracy to trick us into paying taxes, I gotta ask, WHY? The people who make the tax laws don't need to trick us, they have to power to come right out in the open and say it, and if that's not what the congress meant and it was all hijacked by the ebil gobment boys over at the IRS, how come not once has Congress tried to rein in the great conspiracy? Surely there'd be a few votes in getting the IRS out of the revenue collection business?

To be honest I don't think many if any care if its legal or not nor have they made any attempt to try and find out. At this point if it was discovered the government has erroneously taxed the average person for the last 50+ years and people have been complaining and thrown into prison for it the government would collapse soon after. Its a matter of greed....taxes buy power. Without handouts they couldn't buy votes, both republicans and democrats alike. Why else do you think pork barrel spending has skyrocketed? They do it because they can, they tax because they can regardless if its right, wrong or illegal. The government has always pushed the limits of its use of power and always will. The government is no longer limited by the threat of the court striking down a law as unconstitutional, they know they can go as far as the people, regardless of the constitution, will accept without rioting.

[Gregg]

MAybe it's a tangental issue, but personally I think the government started a long slide into insane when we started the direct election of Senators. As originally constructed, the lower house of congress represented the people of the republic, the upper house represented the states which had afterall created the union that is The United States. The states through their legislatures sent Senators to congress to protect "states rights" and when they converted the Senate into just another House of represenatives with longer terms they paved the road to corruption. It's easy for the Represenatives to sell out their votes to the highest bidder but the Senate would be a lot harder to get to go along with a lot of the pork spending which often includes matching funds fromt eh states that they are not real happy to pay. Unfunded mandates? Hard to see a lot of that when the Senate is answerable not to the half of the porpulation that are net recievers of public monies but to the states that are going to have to find the cash.

Getting back to your comments, the phrase "from whatever source" adds one thing for me anyway, it negates a lot of attempts to try to overanalyze what they did or did not mean, it makes it clear that they mean in fact ALL of your income, no matter where it comes from. Wages, dividends, salary, government benefits, profits from overseas corporations, found treasure, it's all included......

[SteveSy]

Brief as it is, it indicates the characteristic and distinguishing attribute of income essential for a correct solution of the present controversy. The government, although basing its argument upon the definition as quoted, placed chief emphasis upon the word "gain," which was extended to include a variety of meanings; while the significance of the next three words was either overlooked or misconceived. "Derived from capital;" "the gain derived from capital," etc. Here, we have the essential matter: not a gain accruing to capital; not a growth or increment of value in the investment; but a gain, a profit, something of exchangeable value, proceeding from the property, severed from the capital, however invested or employed, and coming in, being "derived" -- that is, received or drawn by the recipient (the taxpayer) for his separate use, benefit and disposal -- that is income derived from property. Nothing else answers the description.
The same fundamental conception is clearly set forth in the Sixteenth Amendment -- "incomes, from whatever source derived" -- the essential thought being expressed [252 U.S. 208] with a conciseness and lucidity entirely in harmony with the form and style of the Constitution.
- Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189 (1920) (emphasis same as court's)

Steve, that quote does not even remotely support your bizarre claim that wages aren't "derived." Eisner was talking about a gain in the value of property which hadn't been realized (Eisner's stock was worth more on paper, but he hadn't sold it yet). When a worker gets paid, his wages are ""derived" -- that is, received or drawn by the recipient (the taxpayer) for his separate use, benefit and disposal," in the Supreme Court's words.

The point was "derived" means to come from something else. You can't derive an income from a wage and a wage be 100% income...its nonsensical. The purpose of the phrase "derived from whatever source" IMO, as the court made mention of, is to include income derived from a source you control or have ownership in. Reading the debates from that period it was clear great sums of money were being accumulated by the wealthy through investment of capital. The amendment was created to get to that money so that tariffs could be lowered on the working class. No one said hey, we need to be able to tax everyone on their earnings, we need the money so let's get an amendment. The amendment would have never made it, because the top supporters would have jumped ship, if it was known this amendment would be the method by which congress would soon increase taxation on the working class by well over 1000%. The push for the amendment was to reduce taxation on the lower classes not give the government a perpetual, no limit defined, ability to directly seize the earnings of every working person in the U.S.

And for some to claim they don't even need the 16th to do that anyway is beyond absurd.....There is no way the constitution was ratified with that power in place. If the populous even remotely thought the federal government would obtain such a power we wouldn't have had a constitution. Considering how thought out the anti federalist papers and federalist papers are it wouldn't have been overlooked. Someone would have said something....but then they did, didn't they, they labeled such a tax a direct tax requiring apportionment.

[SteveSy]

Getting back to your comments, the phrase "from whatever source" adds one thing for me anyway, it negates a lot of attempts to try to overanalyze what they did or did not mean, it makes it clear that they mean in fact ALL of your income, no matter where it comes from. Wages, dividends, salary, government benefits, profits from overseas corporations, found treasure, it's all included......

It negates what, how? If that were removed it would change nothing whatsoever under your interpretation of the amendment. Removing "from whatever source derived" would mean income regardless is taxed. "From whatever source derived" can only be a limitation. You said a "lot of attempts", surely you can think of one as an example.

[SteveSy]

How do you explain the fact that compensation for services performed by individuals were taxed to those individuals off and on from the 1860s to 1895, when the Pollock decision came down?

The income tax was held unconstitutional in 1895 remember?

And how do you explain the Supreme Court's language in Pollock to the effect that a tax on income from "employments" (compensation for services) was an excise, an indirect tax?

They never said that.....they said considering a tax "on" employments was an excise, which it was, as a license tax which they wrote in the previous opinion.

Do you understand that NO FEDERAL COURT has ever ruled that the Congress does not have the power to impose an income tax on compensation for services, whether called wages or anything else?

I never said that couldn't tax wages, how they can do it is the question.

And how do you explain the Court's statement of its reason, in Pollock, for ruling the entire 1894 statute invalid? Hint: I am deliberately hiding the ball here.

Yes I understand what they said but considering you mistakenly believe they said a tax on income from employment was an excise which they never said I doubt you understand what they said. I think you have adopted the propaganda as your version of history.

You do realize in the previous opinion they quoted the following:

The most generally received opinion, however, is that, by direct taxes in the Constitution, those are meant which are raised on the capital or revenue of the people; by indirect, such as are raised on their expense

- Albert Gallatin
Sketch of the Finances of the United States (1796)

Not to mention its a little absurd to tax a gain that you haven't even gained yet, it was never in your possession nor did you have control of it.

Steve, you're confusing the concepts of "money" and "income." Whether you physically receive 100% of the money or not, a taxpayer using what is known as the "cash receipts and disbursements method of accounting" (which is something of a misnomer, actually) is taxed on the entire gross income amount received or constructively received. It's called the doctrine of constructive receipt.

Nothing is in his control, received or even assigned to the worker when the government gets its cut from a workers paycheck.

Further, taxpayers who instead use the accrual method (mainly corporations, partnerships, etc.) are taxed on income when the income is EARNED, which is not necessarily when the "money" is received.

People are not corporations or business. Please do not compare a business to a person considering the government will not allow a person to expense legitimate expense for earning their income such as travel to and from their employment while a business can expense their travel to a from a client.

There is absolutely no problem under Article I of the Constitution (or under the Amendment) with these kinds of treatments, whether the taxpayer is using the cash method or the accrual method.

So say you...obviously using the ruling from the court, prior to the their attempt to justify everything the government does, income must be for your separate use and benefit. To claim its income prior to it even being in your control, assigned or anything else so it can be taxed as a gain or profit is plain wrong.

Steve, the only person here having difficulty with the concept seems to be you. "From whatever source derived" essentially means "from whatever source received."

So it adds something to "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes"? What does it add exactly? What more is taxed or what power is added by including the phrase "from whatever source derived"? You can't answer that because under your understanding there is no legitimate answer.

[Investor]

So it adds something to "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes"? What does it add exactly? What more is taxed or what power is added by including the phrase "from whatever source derived"? You can't answer that because under your understanding there is no legitimate answer.

The answer lies within the Brushaber decision. It adds no power to tax. What it does is specifically overrule the Pollack decision by saying it does not matter if the income tax is direct or not, it is not subject to apportionment.

Keep in mind that the Court in Pollack did not have a problem with taxing income, or even taxing income without apportionment. They had difficulty in determining whether a tax on income derived from property ownership (dividends and rent, to be specific) constituted a direct tax on the underlying property, thereby requiring apportionment. The 16th Amendment language "from whatever source derived" clarifies that Pollack is no longer good law, as the Court spells out in Brushaber. It does not matter that the income is derived from the ownership of property. That is what it adds.

[Cpt Banjo]

How do you explain the fact that compensation for services performed by individuals were taxed to those individuals off and on from the 1860s to 1895, when the Pollock decision came down?

The income tax was held unconstitutional in 1895 remember?

Only because it taxed investment income. An income tax on personal earnings was held to be constitutional in 1880, remember?

Steve, the only person here having difficulty with the concept seems to be you. "From whatever source derived" essentially means "from whatever source received."

So it adds something to "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes"? What does it add exactly? What more is taxed or what power is added by including the phrase "from whatever source derived"? You can't answer that because under your understanding there is no legitimate answer.

The answer is that the amendment was intended to overrule the result in Pollock, where the Court had distinguished between a tax on investment income and a tax on all other income. The Court considered the former to be a direct tax by looking at the source of the income, and the amendment's language was to make it clear beyond any doubt that the source didn't matter -- all income could be taxed by Congress without apportionment.

[SteveSy]

So it adds something to "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes"? What does it add exactly? What more is taxed or what power is added by including the phrase "from whatever source derived"? You can't answer that because under your understanding there is no legitimate answer.

The answer lies within the Brushaber decision. It adds no power to tax. What it does is specifically overrule the Pollack decision by saying it does not matter if the income tax is direct or not, it is not subject to apportionment.

It would do that without "from whatever source derived" being added.

Keep in mind that the Court in Pollack did not have a problem with taxing income, or even taxing income without apportionment. They had difficulty in determining whether a tax on income derived from property ownership (dividends and rent, to be specific) constituted a direct tax on the underlying property, thereby requiring apportionment.

I'm not sure how you can come to that conclusion considering they never said in any way shape or form "we don't have a problem with taxing income" in the general sense unless of course you mean the court said income could be taxed, whether it requires apportionment or not is still debatable.

The 16th Amendment language "from whatever source derived" clarifies that Pollack is no longer good law, as the Court spells out in Brushaber. It does not matter that the income is derived from the ownership of property. That is what it adds.

It simply does not add that. "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes" already includes income from everywhere, it plainly says they have the power to tax incomes without limitation, end of story. "From whatever source derived can only be a limitation.

[SteveSy]

How do you explain the fact that compensation for services performed by individuals were taxed to those individuals off and on from the 1860s to 1895, when the Pollock decision came down?

The income tax was held unconstitutional in 1895 remember?

Only because it taxed investment income. An income tax on personal earnings was held to be constitutional in 1880, remember?

No I don't remember that. The Pollock court made a distinction of why Springer was taxed. The question before the court was is Springer's, and they only considered Springer, income taxable by the income tax. Springer operated a very profitable business, it wasn't just a regular paycheck as some of you like lead people to believe. More importantly, he was a federally licensed lawyer, the court had already made it clear in earlier decisions the measure can be anything as long as the act or activity is taxable. The act of obtaining and operating under a federal license was federally taxable. His income today would be in the millions btw.

The answer is that the amendment was intended to overrule the result in Pollock, where the Court had distinguished between a tax on investment income and a tax on all other income. The Court considered the former to be a direct tax by looking at the source of the income, and the amendment's language was to make it clear beyond any doubt that the source didn't matter -- all income could be taxed by Congress without apportionment.

So "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes" would have allowed Pollock to stand? It clearly includes income from property. Are you saying adding "from whatever source derived" now makes earnings from property income where it otherwise wouldn't have been?

[Investor]

It simply does not add that. "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes" already includes income from everywhere, it plainly says they have the power to tax incomes without limitation, end of story. "From whatever source derived can only be a limitation.

Simple Time Line:

1987 - The Constituion is Ratified: Article I, Section 8, gives Congress the power to lay taxes. Article I, Section 9 provides that all "direct taxes" must be apportioned among the several states.

1895 - Pollock v. Farmers Loan & Trust: The Supreme Court finds the income tax to be unconstitutional because portions of it are direct taxes and the tax is not apportioned.

1913 - 16th Amendment is Ratified: The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Note that the language, "without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration", mirrors the language of Article I, Section 9, "direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers...". A coincidence? I think not.

1916 - Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad: I'll let the Court take this one:

Nothing could serve to make this clearer than to recall that in the Pollock Case, in so far as the law taxed incomes from other classes of property than real estate and invested personal property, that is, income from 'professions, trades, employments, or vocations' (158 U. S. 637), its validity was recognized; indeed, it was expressly declared that no dispute was made upon that subject, and attention was called to the fact that taxes on such income had been sustained as excise taxes in the past. Id. p. 635.

The whole law was, however, declared unconstitutional on the ground that to permit it to thus operate would relieve real estate and invested personal property from taxation and 'would leave the burden of the tax to be borne by professions, trades, employments, or vacations; and in that way what was intended as a tax on capital would remain, in substance, a tax on occupations and labor' (id. p. 637),--a result which, it was held, could not have been contemplated by Congress.

This is the text of the Amendment:

'The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.'

It is clear on the face of this text that it does not purport to confer power to levy income taxes in a generic sense,--an authority already possessed and never questioned, --or to limit and distinguish between one kind of income taxes and another, but that the whole purpose of the Amendment was to relieve all income taxes when imposed from apportionment from a consideration of the source whence the income was derived. Indeed, in the light of the history which we have given and of the decision in the Pollock Case, and the ground upon which the ruling in that case was based, there is no escape from the conclusion that the Amendment was drawn for the purpose of doing away for the future with the principle upon which the Pollock Case was decided; that is, of determining whether a tax on income was direct not by a consideration of the burden placed on the taxed income upon which it directly operated, but by taking into view the burden which resulted on the property from which the income was derived, since in express terms the Amendment provides that income taxes, from whatever source the income may be derived, shall not be subject to the regulation of apportionment. From this in substance it indisputably arises, first, that all the contentions which we have previously noticed concerning the assumed limitations to be implied from the language of the Amendment as to the nature and character of the income taxes which it authorizes find no support in the text and are in irreconcilable conflict with the very purpose which the Amendment was adopted to accomplish.

Second, that the contention that the Amendment treats a tax on income as a direct tax although it is relieved from apportionment and is necessarily therefore not subject to the rule of uniformity as such rule only applies to taxes which are not direct, thus destroying the two great classifications which have been recognized and enforced from the beginning, is also wholly without foundation since the command of the Amendment that all income taxes shall not be subject to apportionment by a consideration of the sources from which the taxed income may be derived forbids the application to such taxes of the rule applied in the Pollock Case by which alone such taxes were removed from the great class of excises, duties, and imposts subject to the rule of uniformity, and were placed under the other or direct class. This must be unless it can be said that although the Constitution, as a result of the Amendment, in express terms excludes the criterion of source of income, that criterion yet remains for the purpose of destroying the classifications of the Constitution by taking an excise out of the class to which it belongs and transferring it to a class in which it cannot be placed consistently with the requirements of the Constitution. Indeed, from another point of view, the Amendment demonstrates that no such purpose was intended, and on the contrary shows that it was drawn with the object of maintaining the limitations of the Constitution and harmonizing their operation. We say this because it is to be observed that although from the date of the Hylton Case, because of statements made in the opinions in that case, it had come to be accepted that direct taxes in the constitutional sense were confined to taxes levied directly on real estate because of its ownership, the Amendment contains nothing repudiation or challenging the ruling in the Pollock Case that the word 'direct' had a broader significance, since it embraced also taxes levied directly on personal property because of its ownership, and therefore the Amendment at least impliedly makes such wider significance a part of the Constitution, --a condition which clearly demonstrates that the purpose was not to change the existing interpretation except to the extent necessary to accomplish the result intended; that is, the prevention of the resort to the sources from which a taxed income was derived in order to cause a direct tax on the income to be a direct tax on the source itself, and thereby to take an income tax out of the class of excises, duties, and imposts, and place it in the class of direct taxes.[emphasis added]

[Investor]

So "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes" would have allowed Pollock to stand? It clearly includes income from property. Are you saying adding "from whatever source derived" now makes earnings from property income where it otherwise wouldn't have been?

No, Steve, it removed the restriction of "must be apportioned among the several states..." in regards to any portion of the income tax which may be viewed as a direct tax. Again, Pollock did not say that an income tax was unconstitutional. It said, to the extent that the income tax was a direct tax, the tax was only constitutional if it was apportioned among the several states, which it was not. The 16th Amendment, as clarified in Brushaber, removed any need to apportion a tax on incomes, direct, indirect or otherwise.

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration."

[SteveSy]

It simply does not add that. "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes" already includes income from everywhere, it plainly says they have the power to tax incomes without limitation, end of story. "From whatever source derived can only be a limitation.

Simple Time Line:

1987 - The Constituion is Ratified: Article I, Section 8, gives Congress the power to lay taxes. Article I, Section 9 provides that all "direct taxes" must be apportioned among the several states.

1895 - Pollack v. Farmers Loan & Trust: The Supreme Court finds the income tax to be unconstitutional because portions of it are direct taxes and the tax is not apportioned.

1913 - 16th Amendment is Ratified: The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Note that the language, "without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration", mirrors the language of Article I, Section 9, "direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers...". A coincidence? I think not.

1916 - Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad: I'll let the Court take this one:

Nothing could serve to make this clearer than to recall that in the Pollock Case, in so far as the law taxed incomes from other classes of property than real estate and invested personal property, that is, income from 'professions, trades, employments, or vocations' (158 U. S. 637), its validity was recognized; indeed, it was expressly declared that no dispute was made upon that subject, and attention was called to the fact that taxes on such income had been sustained as excise taxes in the past. Id. p. 635.

I disagree with the court in part, the court in Pollock never said such a thing. What they said was:

We have considered the act only in respect of the tax on income derived from real estate, and from invested personal property, and have not commented on so much of it as bears on gains or profits from business, privileges, or employments, in view of the instances in which taxation on business, privileges, or employments has assumed the guise of an excise tax and been sustained as such.

The court in Pollock did not affirm taxes on incomes from professions, trades, employments, or vocations as an excise. They did however say that taxes "on" professions, trades, employments, or vocations was an excise and made it clear in several opinions the measure can be anything, which could include income but the tax is on the use of a privilege. Nicol v. Ames states this very concisely:

The tax is not a direct tax within the meaning of the Constitution, but is, as already stated, in the nature of a duty or an excise. The amount of such a tax, when imposed in a case like this, may be increased or diminished by the extent to which the privilege or facility is used, and it is measured in this act by the value of the property transferred by means of using such privilege or facility, but this does not make the tax a direct one. A tax on professional receipts was recognized by the present Chief Justice, in delivering the opinion of the Court on the first hearing of the Income Tax Case, 157 U.S. 429, 579, as an excise or duty, and [173 U.S. 520] therefore indirect, while a tax on the income of personalty, he thought, might be regarded as direct.

Nicol v. Ames

The "Income Tax Case, 157 U.S. 429, 579" is directly to:

The original record discloses that the income was not [157 U.S. 579] derived in any degree from real estate, but was in part professional as attorney at law and the rest interest on United States bonds. It would seem probable that the court did not feel called upon to advert to the distinction between the latter and the former source of income, as the validity of the tax as to either would sustain the action.

- POLLOCK v. FARMERS' LOAN & TRUST CO

Springer was a federally licensed attorney the tax was justifiable by taxing the privilege of obtaining and using the license the measure being income. Now before one of you come back and say the Springer court never mentioned any privilege I might add that they didn't mention income from property either. Surely many people and businesses paid taxes on income from property in 1865 as that was a major source of income for the wealthy back then. the court never said in Springer that was excluded however on closer examination taxes on certain types of income were considered direct.

btw, if you're looking for some TP site that has my quotes on it as if I copied and pasted you won't find any. I did all my own research, good or bad however you see it.

[Investor]

We have considered the act only in respect of the tax on income derived from real estate, and from invested personal property, and have not commented on so much of it as bears on gains or profits from business, privileges, or employments, in view of the instances in which taxation on business, privileges, or employments has assumed the guise of an excise tax and been sustained as such.

Can you cite where exactly this is in the Pollock decision? I don't see that anywhere in the decision (and the find function on my word processor does not show anything remotely resembling it).

[Prof]

Stevesy posted:

Springer was a federally licensed attorney the tax was justifiable by taxing the privilege of obtaining and using the license the measure being income. Now before one of you come back and say the Springer court never mentioned any privilege I might add that they didn't mention income from property either. Surely many people and businesses paid taxes on income from property in 1865 as that was a major source of income for the wealthy back then. the court never said in Springer that was excluded however on closer examination taxes on certain types of income were considered direct.

How do you know that Springer was "federally licensed? Unless admitted in DC, there is no such license to practice (if you consider a DC license "federal").

Some attorneys are admitted to practice in federal courts, although admission is on a court-by-court basis (in other words, you must be admitted to each district court, each circuit, the specialized courts, and the Supreme Court, all one at a time-- I'm admitted in only 6 District Courts and only 2 Circuits).

However, most attorneys in the US are not admitted to practice in any federal court. (I'm in a 50+ law firm and only about 25 of our lawyers are admitted in federal court. In large firms, with transactional practices, the ratio would probably be about 15% (when I was with a mega firm, that was about the right percentage).

So, how do you know that Springer was "federally licensed?"

[SteveSy]

We have considered the act only in respect of the tax on income derived from real estate, and from invested personal property, and have not commented on so much of it as bears on gains or profits from business, privileges, or employments, in view of the instances in which taxation on business, privileges, or employments has assumed the guise of an excise tax and been sustained as such.

Can you cite where exactly this is in the Pollock decision? I don't see that anywhere in the decision (and the find function on my word processor does not show anything remotely resembling it).

There are two Pollock cases, that quote is from 158 U.S. 601, the other case is 157 U.S. 429.